The conventional material handling pallet typically is formed with normally horizontal, vertically spaced apart, top and bottom walls, such top and bottom walls not only vertically spaced apart, but also connected together by normally vertical elongate side walls. The longitudinal axial space between the said top, bottom and side walls is adapted to receive therewithin tongue or fork members of pallet handling trucks. With one or more pallets speared on the normally horizontal, elongate tongue or fork members of the pallet handling truck, such pallet(s) may be moved around a warehouse receiving materials from various storage points piled thereon. Once the pallets are loaded, they are typically moved to loading docks by the pallet handling trucks, there to be deposited to be loaded, when convenient, on other vehicles to carry the pallets of materials to their ultimate destination. In common use, there is, first, a number of loaded pallets being regularly dispensed from a typical warehouse, often in a relatively continuous stream. New or replacement pallets are supplied to the warehouse as required (or continuously) thus to maintain available the supplies of pallets for the described materials handling.
Large number of pallets take up large quantities of space, even when piled or stacked in storage areas of the warehouse. Means are not currently readily available for easily handling individual pallets from disordered stacks or high stacks of pallets, which situation gives rise to the need for:
(1) Means for establishing and maintaining high, aligned, vertical stacks of pallets; and
(2) Means for dispensing pallets sequentially in an orderly, convenient fashion from the bottom ends of said pallet stacks.
The point is that, without such proper vertical storage and controlled bottom level dispensing from the vertical storage, significant costs are incurred in the warehouse, as well as physical difficulties. Thus, there is a substantial loss of space to pallet storage which could be otherwise dedicated to machine space or other storage and, as well, there are maintenance problems and costs from damage to unprotected pallets from collisions with and handling problems with trucks and fork lifts. The difficulties of top of stack pallet dispensing are multifold, as well as hazardous.
Pallets are useful in myriad types of industrial plants and storage facilities. In such, pallets are currently indispensable as a material handling expedient. Firms using extensive numbers of pallets have found that maintenance of same constitutes a costly item of overhead. Frequent replacement of heavily damaged pallets and repair of slightly damaged pallets annually occasion increasing expense to many industrial users. Stacking or spotting pallets indiscriminately throughout a plant, as opposed to customarily storing same in convenient, yet unobstructive locations, is one primary cause for pallet damage. Absent proper stacking, in protected manner, pallets are exposed to damage by mobile agents, including trucks, in a plant, warehouse or the grounds thereof.
Workmen typically demonstrate little care in handling pallets when such are scattered throughout the plant. Consequently through such careless treatment, the life of each pallet is markedly reduced, with additional expected increase in expensive maintenance.
To the contrary, where unloaded pallets are compactly stored in stacked formation, maximum economy in plant space may be effected, demanding minimum floor area. Orderly storage releases valuable areas for productive purposes while aiding and protecting the pallet against damage.